RAL R100 Space Development and Test Facility Opens

The RAL R100 houses a suite of construction, calibration and testing facilities for space technology. The building is located on the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory campus near Newbury and incorporates clean rooms, a vibration test facility to test the integrity of new satellites prior to launch, and special vibration isolated vacuum chambers to simulate space conditions and enable the precision calibration of satellite instrumentation.

Cole Jarman assisted throughout the design process form inception to completion, considering internal and external sound insulation, requirements for vibration isolation of testing technology suites and the sound insulation of the noisy vibration facility. The acoustic design also considered BREEAM requirements and helped to obtain an “Excellent” rating for the building.